All athletes have a goal of maintaining a healthy lifestyle both in and off-season. Athletes use a lot of energy in their activities more than an average person. They work hard to deliver their best and to reduce the chances of injury. During the off-season, athletes can achieve flexibility and strength by focusing on their health as opposed to just going to the gym and relaxing. Here are the various tips that athletes can use to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Sleep

It is recommendable for a person to sleep for about six hours. However, athletes need about seven to nine hours so that they might relax their brain and body. Athletes should train their mind on managing stress and anxiety before their bedtime which improves the quality of sleep especially during in-season. They should turn the TV or laptop off, stop any loud music and if the music is necessary, then they should listen to soft relaxing music. Moreover, they should train themselves on waking up every day at the same time and have a productive morning routine. Therefore, for a healthy lifestyle, an athlete has to sleep early and wake up early for a productive day.

Eat Healthily

Nutrition is an essential aspect of the healthy lifestyle of an athlete. Everybody needs to eat healthy to have a healthy life. Athletes need to add carbohydrates in their diet which assists in getting enough energy during training. Moreover, they need enough proteins to maintain and build up their muscles. Some athletes want to lose weight and others want to gain. Whatever the case, nutrition is an essential part, and they should discover the proper nutrition for their goal and eat at the right times. An athlete who is busy can choose to cook at home slowly without fully attending to the food and at the same time get other businesses done.

Strengthen Body Links

Athletes should not just sit around and go on vacation during the off-season. It is vital that they use this period to strengthen their weak links such as the ankle, rotator cuff, elbow, forearms, and neck. These body parts get weak and easily injured when playing and thus they need to be strengthened. For a healthy lifestyle, an athlete should ensure that all body parts are strengthened and are not easily injured. This can only be achieved by engaging in exercises that strengthen them such as basketball players exercising their ankles to avoid pain when playing.

Cardiovascular Exercise for Athletes

For a healthy lifestyle, athletes should consider cardiovascular exercises. Cardio exercises improve the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygenated blood to working muscles. The muscles then use the oxygen to provide sufficient energy for the body. An athlete should find the best cardio exercise that favors their health and fitness status. Not all cardio exercises work for everybody. For example, if an athlete has been injured, high-intense aerobics are off the hook and opt for jogging, dancing, walking, or cycling in the meantime. Cardio exercises have improved the healthy lifestyle of many athletes both on and off-season.

Hydrate

It is important for athletes to replace water that is lost through sweating by drinking water. Dehydration is unhealthy, and thus all athletes should have a water bottle every time to make sure that they are replacing the lost water. Moreover, when sweating athletes lose electrolytes which they can replace by drinking water with a pinch of salt, milk, yogurt or electrolyte replacement beverages. Foods such as bananas and pumpkin seeds also help to replace electrolytes. Rehydration is important for an athlete who wants to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Flexibility

It is crucial for an athlete to be flexible to achieve a healthy lifestyle and thus an athlete should practice stretching exercises. Flexibility and mobility are essential to reduce the high chances of injuries. An athlete should spend around 15 to 30 minutes stretching and doing activities that make mobility easy. Jumping exercise is important for basketball players. Whenever an athlete is flexible, there are fewer chances of being injured as they can easily jump off whenever a dangerous situation occurs. It is simple to maintain a healthy lifestyle when one is an athlete by simply following the above guidelines. All athletes should work on making the best out of their career and not put their health at stake in the process.

I was fortunate enough to be in Las Vegas for the International Franchise Conference. I was one of 49 lucky winners of …the first annual NextGen Summit, an international competition that looked for businesses that had franchise potential. I’ve had ideas to franchise aspects of O2 MAX Fitness, especially our PromFit programs but had put it on the back-burner for a while to focus on other aspects of the company. The #IFA2015 conference definitely fired me up to continue to pursue this part of the business.

Our very own Jake Hines, best known for working with most of the kids that come into our studio is officially getting certified to become a personal trainer! Follow his journey as he shares his experiences and knowledge along the way!

Join us every Monday night for a run w/ KSwiss, Los Angeles Run Club, and O2 MAX!! We meet at the KSwiss store on Main St. in Santa Monica and run about 3-8 miles. We will be helping YOU get ready for The Santa Monica 5000!! GREAT opportunity to get faster, stronger or just surround yourself with some fun/cool people and get inspired to run your first short race!!

Tour de Fitness began as a local guerilla marketing campaign to raise awareness on youth fitness. TDF has received several awards and recognition to date: Best Guerilla Marketing Tactic by USC in ’09, a presenter at the annual IDEA Fitness convention in ’10, as well as a nomination for the best event from the Governor’s Fitness Council in ’10. TDF and has grown to include the community and business at large as community rallies to spread the importance of youth fitness. O2 MAX is excited to not only partner with KooDooz, (a cause based company for kids) for the second year in a row, but to also have the support of the Santa Monica Chamber and Buy Local of Santa Monica.

Slathered in a war paint of sunblock and clad in army colored shirts, wearing Accusplit pedometers the Santa Monica community rallies to support youth fitness.

Host Daniella Monet, from Nickelodeon’s Victorious, will lead the marchers as they walk 6 miles stopping to hydrate, refuel and engage in various fitness activities led by:

The day’s fun comes to a close with a workout led by celebrity trainer Natasha Kufa at K-Swiss, located at Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard. Everyone who has enjoyed this day of fitness should stick around for goodie bags, and a chance to be on the radio.

Summer Internship Program – 2010

Hands-on experience in an entrepreneurial business environment in the youth fitness industry.

Work closely with the management team on a variety of projects including program development and launching, event planning, marketing techniques, business development, and social media strategies.

Opportunity to develop professionally in an environment that encourages new ideas, entrepreneurs, innovative ways of thinking and an enthusiasm to learn

WHAT IS O2 MAX?

O2 MAX is a youth fitness company with a home base in Santa Monica, CA. Our mission and goal is to engage the youth population locally and nationally in order to educate kids about healthy eating, the importance of exercising, and how to integrating both into a well-rounded lifestyle.

We have branded ourselves as the “go to” company for anything regarding youth fitness. We specialize in online fitness programming for high school and college-aged students. We also have a Family Fitness program that allows families to work out together. We seek to motivate today’s youth through non-traditional methods: we combine social media, internet communication, and real-world interaction.

Additionally, O2 MAX is heavily involved in the community: we offer fitness classes at many of the local schools, nutrition and fitness workshops, and puts on two large events in Santa Monica yearly (Tour de Fitness and Energy Rocks).

O2 MAX is SEEKING INTERNS IN FOR THE FOLLOWING POSITIONS:

Business Development and Operations:

o Brainstorm and implement new strategies and avenues to expand O2 MAX as a business

o Work with existing marketing team to refine and perfect existing marketing strategies

Website and Technology

o Maintain and improve existing WebPages and social media pages

o Assist in fitness programming process

o Research new ways for us to improve our companies internet profile as a whole

o Work on web design and graphic design projects

AUDIO/VIDEO PRODUCTION

o Using digital video, audio podcasting, social and online media, our goal is to strengthen our stand against obesity in our youth and increase family fitness on a global scale.

o Our current projects include the development of a fitness/exercise video library and production of live streaming web shows. Additionally, we have just begun pre-production on audio podcasts for distribution in iTunes and via our website.

We are looking for a progressive, creative film student to help us capture our message through storytelling in short bursts. Our demographic is young people and their parents. We need to reach them in bits and pieces. We produce live video streaming shows like: “Ask the Trainer” which we will turn in to video podcasts to be distributed after broadcast and distributed via iTunes.

Responsibilities

– Capture and editing of O2 Max video and audio productions
– Transcribing audio in to show notes for each episode
-Editing assets uploading them to our website, iTunes and other online channels (YouTube, Facebook)
– Collaborate on projects, providing input for stories, storyboarding and creating a look and feel for O2 Max
– Other responsibilities as agreed upon with the staff

Qualifications

– Demonstrated understanding of editing process for audio and video, including familiarity with web-friendly file types and conversion
– Demonstrated proficiency using a Mac computer
– Demonstrated interest in fitness and web media
– Demonstrated ability to work with aggressive deadlines in a fast-paced environment
– Basic but demonstrated experience using various sound and video media types
– Proven ability to learn about web technologies, processes, and protocols
– Proven ability to work in a team environment
– Strong organizational skills
– Strong desire to learn iMovie and FinalCut Studio video editing software

If interested in summer internship message for an application and submit your resume. We are seeking interns who are willing to come into our studio in Santa Monica at least 2 times a week (flexible hours), however, we will accept applicants who are not local and will be evaluated based on merit.

It’s been difficult to start my workout since I’m still moving. To be honest I haven’t started. Nonetheless, I have devised a way to try to work out while I’m moving. For instance:

I now have FIVE flights of stairs to go up and down on now.
When I have to carry a box up the stairs, I kind of hold my stomach in, making it tight, it gives a burning sensation. I also wear a sash around my waist so I don’t hurt my back. I’m not sure if this is doing anything but it burns slightly so it must be doing something. Also, when I go up the stairs but I’m not carrying anything, I go up one stair, go back, go up three stairs go back, and so on. Sort of like suicides. Until I get all settled this is the only thing I can come up with as a way to get fit while moving into my new house.
After moving a lot of boxes and unpacking, I drink lots of water and much on a granola bar. Or I’ll drink my crave blocker type of shake, I personally use Herbalife and/or Attain. They both taste great and are filling.

Starting February 1, 2010, some of the members of O2 Max began working hard to reach their fitness goals, both long-term, and short-term. We set up a Boxing work-out and a work-out targeting large muscle groups. After working on the treadmill and bike for cardiovascular activity, the kids really enjoyed boxing as a GREAT substitute for burning off some calories and getting their heart rates up. The exercises shown below were done in a circuit; so after 2 minutes of doing an exercise, the kids would have 30 seconds to get to the other exercise station and have a minute to rest before starting again with the new exercise. Resting in-between sets is extremely important because it allows your body to restore its lost Creatine Phosphate/ATP; Phosphagen. This allows the muscles to refuel for the next set allowing for growth. Whatever your fitness goal is, how much rest you will take in-between sets will be different. Here are the exercises are done on the circuit:

1) Warm up with 10 mins of your cardio choice.
A. Boxing, jabs while running in place
B. Cable Rows for a minute
C. 10 push-ups then 15 yoga ball crunches, then repeat for a minute
D. Squats with medicine ball throw

All of this was accomplished in 1 hour, which is plenty of time to work-out and produce results. Many people believe that it takes a couple hours to the gym to see results which aren’t true! When you go to the gym, come prepared knowing what exercise, weights, and machines you are needing to use so you don’t waste time roaming around the gym taking away time from your work-out.

The Family Fitness (F2) program is a year-long membership that gives families access to exciting monthly weekend events sponsored by local businesses. Join today, workout together tomorrow, develop positive habits that last a lifetime.

Youth obesity rates are climbing every year. There is a lot of talk about it, but not much effort is being put towards preventing it.

Our mission at O2 MAX fitness is to redefine fitness for youth by empowering them to embrace exercise, nutrition, and healthy living, and we do this by offering a diverse line of programming that pioneers the integration of educational, social and recreational elements. It has been said that people become who they are going to be by age 6. We want the future to be a healthier one. F2 is a way for parents to instill the fundamentals of healthier living in their children, by providing a family-friendly environment with fun events for parents and their kids.

More about how F2 works…

F2 is a yearlong membership, which includes events every month sponsored by local businesses. O2 MAX provides dynamic and interesting events that showcase businesses while exposing families and kids to as many different types of activities as possible to help get them moving.